Small talk: hate it. Avoid it. Move on. But...(introversion taken too far is a weakness) I do miss a lot by doing that, so I am doing a little of it at my speed. I do a little small talk with friends. (don't tell anyone, but i act like an extrovert sometimes.) and I un-followed an extrovert that must have been talking to the whole world and no one could not get a tweet in-- even with DM.::0

I am taking conversation lessons(by watching them tweet)from a close friend who seems to have interesting conversations with a reasonable number of people. Maybe I could learn something from an extrovert... I will listen and keep you posted.

Getting overwhelmed:
My purpose on Twitter is to build a brand (helpful, learning professional), so I put interesting learning related info in my tweet stream. Yep, I do most of the talking... you don't see me having a lot of conversations. That is how I handle it.

The issue of too many followers and overload I handle with software tools. I follow most people back and the list can be thousands without making the introvert in me uncomfortable -- I am not having a conversation with them, but micro-blogging: they are reading what I write.

I use software tools to separate out the few close friends from the thousands... this is the group I have conversations with.

Lastly, you hit the listening on the head with me. I do a lot of re- tweeting... which is basically listening and nodding my head in agreement.